You’ve probably heard about the potential benefits for your parish. You’ve read about it here. You’ve heard me say it. Even some Bishops are tweeting. The Facebook thing looks great. Google+ looks interesting. So you and the Pastor decide to give it a go. You set up all the accounts, do your customization, you tweet, you status update, and . . . nothing seems to be happening. And you’re left wondering if all this hype is valid or just simply hype. Or you’re left wondering what you did wrong.

If this is you . . . you’re not alone. We’ve all been there. It’s exciting to ponder the possibilties, easy to set these things up, and you’re rolling in no time. But the one thing we often forget to do is plan it out first. It’s kind of like envisioning this great party, ordering all the decorations and food, setting it up, and . . . nobody shows up. A huge bummer right? What happened . . . you sent out invitations but just not to the right people or forgot to send any invitations at all.

Parish communities are unique in the world of social media and most are trying to simply apply common business strategy and advice to their parishes. This does and doesn’t work because the two have very different purposes and agendas (our’s is better by the way). So what should you do to have a successful launch for your social and online strategies?

Form a Web Ministry. This is always done with Pastor approval and he should be included in meetings. Most parishes have someone that “knows computers” and they “do your parish website”. Web design and social media/networking are not the exact same skill set nor are they interchangeable talents for many people skilled in web technologies. So it makes sense to have a few people with varying web talents to execute these things for the parish. In addition, it’s a lot of work for just one person and by putting it all on just one person you are limiting your possibility for success.

Determine what it is you want to accomplish. Not all parishes are the same. Each are beautifully unique from their geographic locations to the makeup of the parishioners, and your online strategies and activities should reflect the unique needs of your parish. I recommend starting with one or two problems that have been common and you’ve been wanting to find a solution. Make sure you get to the root (the real cause) of the problem and brainstorm possible tech tools that might provide a solution. For example, parents have been complaining that the altar server schedule doesn’t get to them timely enough in the mail and it’s making it difficult for them to plan. Sue does those schedules and has a lot on her plate and is doing the best she can to get them typed up, printed, and mailed out. What’s a possible solution? An online calendar for that schedule on your website. Now Sue simply enters the schedule once to the calendar and it’s available to the parents. You’ve saved Sue time, met the parents planning needs, and reduced parish expenses by reducing mailings.

Ask your parishioners. You can’t expect to have a good turnout to you party if 90% of the people you invited don’t have transportation. It’s easy to assume that everybody knows how to drive and has a car right? But maybe a lot of them don’t. This is the same when it comes to online stuff. We assume that everybody has a computer and therefore is online emailing, Facebooking, Tweeting, etc. This might be very true for a parish in Palto Alto, Ca. or New York City; but your parish community might not have a lot of Twitter users BUT it does have a lot of Facebook and/or Google+ users. Find out where your parishioners are by asking them.

Set up a table after Mass to ask people and jot down some numbers of services (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.) your parishioners are using.

If your website does pretty well, add an online poll or survey

Listen over time. You might remember hearing quite a few people suggesting a particular service

Plan it out prior to rolling it out. You’ve found out people want a Facebook page for the parish. You know it will overcome communication barriers because you are heavily reliant on the paper bulletin right now. So you create a page and . . . it just doesn’t seem to work for anything. Facebook pages and Google+ pages are like mini-websites in some ways with better interaction with visitors. These “pages” should be in sync with the parish website and provide a similar set of information (i.e. events, online bulletins, contact info, etc.). The pages will act to be more of a part of daily lives from a social aspect and also an additional hub for information. So your website person and your social media people all need to “be on the same page” (no pun intended) when it comes to information. For example, me and a gentleman at my parish recently discussed providing the bulletin through our Facebook page. He initially thought that should be something for the website. Sounds logical right? But when we discussed it for a few minutes it was quickly apparent that providing it in both places just made sense and it didn’t matter where our parishioners got it but rather that we provided the access to it where our parishioners are.

Promote it! Again, you have to send out the invitations if you expect people to show up to your party. This part always gets missed. We put the website address in the bulletin but nobody goes to the website. You set up the Facebook page but nobody “Likes” it. Write a brief explanation of the benefits in your bulletin. Definitely promote any additions such as adding a Pastor blog, a new design of the Ministry page, bulletins now available for download, etc. Lisa Hendey had a great idea and promoted the Facebook check-in feature in her parish bulletin. Guess what? They saw a huge increase in check-ins immediately that week. Pastor involvement and participation is often a huge factor to parishioner participation and is always something to promote. If you’re a Priest reading this . . . your participation and telling parishioners you support these things goes a very long way (as it does for any parish initiative). We really do listen.

So there you have it. What have you done to plan online strategies for your parish? What creative things have you done to promote these things in your parish?

Author:Brad West

I live in Palm Coast, FL with my family and have assisted my local parish with our website and communications. Our parishes today can benefit a great deal from technology. Whether it's improving communications, community building, evangelizing, business operations, and much more; we have the tools today. To help provide some direction and advice to parishes and parishioners, I wrote and published an eBook titled "The Connected Church" which is available through Barnes and Noble (Nooks and Nook apps) as well as Amazon (Kindle and Kindle apps).

Hi Brad! I would love to see parishes form what I would call a “Digital Discipleship” Team or Committee. What we need in today’s parish goes beyond website or Facebook ministry. Parishes need folks on this team who know how to effectively use social media for parish communications as well as those who understand how to build the infrastructure at the parish level (which includes the school and all the other ministries in the parish). In addition, those who know and understand how to use digital tools in the learning and teaching environment are very, very important today. More importantly, many of our volunteers need to be trained to become comfortable with the technology that surrounds them. Or, if they are comfortable with technology, they need to learn how to use the technology to enhance faith and to evangelize others with our wonderful digital tools. In my estimation – Web Ministry – is just the tip of the iceberg that needs to be addressed in today’s parish.

Brad

I agree, and excellent points. The reality from what I am seeing and hearing from others is that nothing really exists in terms of technology teams/ministries at parishes. For the average parish (and probably, the good majority of parishes) “tech” means website which is one person and that’s where it pretty much stops. In those cases there is the movement to venture into the social services and media which ends up being the same person.

The truth is exactly what you are saying in that there are great benefits, it’s something that is beneficial in many parts of the parish, but it’s not happening. Part of the problem for Catholic parishes is that we really don’t have a “model” of what “right looks like” (although I do have my opinions on what that looks like) that is being communicated from the Diocese level. The Boston Archdiocese is one to watch with this and what Pilot New Media is doing. Hopefully the Communications Departments of Dioceses across the country will start following suit with them.

So we need to start somewhere in parishes which is why I recommend a Ministry be formed that is varied in it’s tech specialties/focuses but all works toward common goals. The Ministry should serve to support technology implementation, execution, and general support/guidance throughout the community (office operations, communications, education, etc.). Schools, however, are a bit more unique and definitely should have Media Specialist on staff that drives those initiatives. But until parishes really make this a priority and a more serious ministry driven by guidance at the Diocese level, we will continue to see slow adoption and uneffective implementation much like we see now in my opinion. But I have faith that the proverbial “light bulbs” will go on eventually.

http://twitter.com/MeredithGould MeredithGould

As you know, I’m over-the-top emphatic about having a strategy BEFORE choosing tools and using them. In my book, The Word Made Fresh: Communicating Church and Faith Today, I zoom in on how church communication involves having not only a secular skill set, but a discerned awareness of one’s spiritual gifts.

I am regularly dismayed and often discouraged when I see parishes/dioceses lump all communications tools together as if they were interchangeable and then invite volunteers to have at them, as if enthusiasm is a good enough criterion for participation.

As for your suggestion about the pastor’s involvement, I urge caution. In the domain of church communications, especially but not exclusively tech, Father may not, in fact, know best. Father may not know anything and be too caught up in the cultural of clericalism to share power and authority with those who do — know best. Lord, have mercy!

Brad

Great input, Meredith. And I couldn’t agree more. In terms of the Pastor, my point is that there involvement is important. One, it’s their parish which they are ultimately responsible for and should always be involved and/or aware. It’s really not ok to launch anything online without Pastor permission and awareness. In addition, Pastor support of any program can be huge in terms of success.

Butch Ekstrom

Nice piece. I will recomment it to others who are floundering on this subject.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=28703007 Sam Thomeczek

Butch,

The Senate of Religious Educators is having a Social Media meeting this morning, and we found this link on your blog. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the blog from the Archdiocese website, and the link was broken on the blog. :/

P.S. Shoot me a fb message and let me know how life is going, etc.

Lisa M. Hendey

Top notch article Brad — so many great suggestions here. I agree with what Meredith is saying, but I also think that a Pastor’s active involvement in the social media communications of a parish can do a great deal to make those seem more important to parishioners. It’s something I have yet to accomplish in my own parish, although I will keep trying. Another of my goals moving forward is to provide a better Spanish language presence in our social media. We have a growing community in our Spanish masses, and I think we’re not doing enough to serve them in the social sphere…

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